ching to no
education at all.

[Footnote 1: The cause of this drastic policy was not so much race
hatred as the fear that any kind of instruction might cause the
Negroes to assert themselves.]

[Footnote 2: Olmsted, _Back Country_, pp. 105, 108.]

[Footnote 3: Conway, _Testimonies Concerning Slavery_, p. 5.]

Thereafter the chief privilege allowed the slaves was to congregate
for evening prayers conducted by themselves under the surveillance
of a number of "discreet persons." The leader chosen to conduct the
services, would in some cases read a passage from the Scriptures and
"line a hymn," which the slaves took up in their turn and sang in a
tune of their own suitable to the meter. In case they had present no
one who could read, or the law forbade such an exercise, some exhorter
among the slaves would be given an opportunity to address the people,
basing his remarks as far as his intelligence allowed him on some
memorized portion of the Bible. The rest of the evening would be
devoted to individual prayers and the singing of favorite hymns,
developed largely from the experience of slaves, who while bearing
their burdens in the heat of the day had learned to sing away their
troubles.

For this untenable position the slave States were so severely
criticized by southern and northern friends of the colored people that
the ministers of that section had to construct a more progressive
policy. Yet whatever might be the arguments of the critics of the
South to prove that the enlightenment of Negroes was not a danger, it
was clear after the Southampton insurrection in 1831 that two factors
in Negro education would for some time continue generally eliminated.
These were reading matter and colored preachers.

Prominent among the southerners who endeavored to readjust their
policy of enlightening the black population, were Bishop William
Meade,[1] Bishop William Capers,[2] and Rev. C.C. Jones.[3] Bishop
Meade was a native of Virginia, long noted for its large element of
benevolent slaveholders who never lost interest in their Negroes. He
was fortunate in finishing his education at Princeton, so productive
then of leaders who fought the institution of slavery.[4] Immediately
after his ordination in the Protestant Episcopal Church, Bishop Meade
assumed the role of a reformer. He took up the cause of the colored
people, devoting no little of his time to them when he was in
Alexandria and Frederick in 1813 and 1814.[5] He began